Any one of such complications of bloodvessel suture as thrombosis, stricture, aneurysm formation, or dehiscence may lead to a fatal result. The threat of these complications is sufficient to warrant continuous search for new methods and improved techniques which will serve to avoid or to minimize them. In experiments described below, the use of stainless steel wire as a suture material for blood vessels has shown distinct promise in this regard.

The materials ordinarily used for blood vessel suture have been (1) very fine surgical gut, (2) fine silk, and (3) fine cotton. The use of surgical gut having now been generally abandoned because of the intense reaction along the suture line, the use of fine nonabsorbable suture material has become an established principle in vascularsurgery. Silk has been used most widely. Cotton has also been employed satisfactorily. Stainless steel wire, however, appearsto possess certain advantages: its inert character, the